#WeeklyNewsRoundUp: SC Takes Away Gurgaon Land From Builders, Calls It Fraud On Power

The Supreme Court has set aside two orders of the erstwhile Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in connection with land acquisitions in adjoining areas of Gurgaon in Haryana, terming the decisions "nothing but fraud on power". The apex court verdict came on plea which related to the land acquisition done by the Haryana government in August 2004 for setting up Chaudhari Devi Lal Industrial Township. The state government three years later intentionally scrapped the plan, allowing private entities to make windfalls in the process, the SC observed.

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Services have started on the 21.56-kilometre Majlis Park-Durgabai Deshmukh South Campus section of the Delhi Metro’s Pink Line on March 14. With this, the Delhi Metro Railway Corporation (DMRC) will cover a network of 252 km. By the year-end, the network is scheduled to have a 350-km operational length, positioning it among the top-five Metro networks in the world, DMRC Managing Director Mangu Singh has said.

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The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is working on a National Urban Rental Housing Policy (NURHP) to alleviate housing shortage in urban areas by encouraging renting of homes as millions of houses lie vacant across the country. Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri says his ministry is preparing a national urban housing policy said to create a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive rental housing market in the country.

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Finland has overtaken Norway to become the happiest nation on earth, according to a United Nations report. The 2018 World Happiness Report also charts the steady decline of the US as the world’s largest economy grapples with a crisis of obesity, substance abuse and depression. India ranked 133rd in the list, far behind neighbours Pakistan and Nepal, in the global list of the happiest countries.

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The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has framed a new draft National Forest Policy, 2018, which proposes climate change mitigation through sustainable forest management. The new policy, which aims to bring a minimum one-third of India’s total geographical area under forest cover through scientific interventions and enforcing strict rules to protect the dense cover, will replace the existing one that has been guiding the government to manage forests since 1988.

Source: Media reports